Marianne Stanley vs. The University of Southern California: Equal Pay for Equal Work?

copyright 1999
ISBN 0-324-03068-1

Case Teaching Package
A case teaching package is available for this case. It includes strategies for case presentation, key concepts, solutions to the assignment questions in the case, and suggestions for the most effective ways to work this case into your course.

Length
This case is 6 pages in length and its case teaching package is 10 pages.

Abstract

Marianne Stanley, former University of Southern California (USC) women's basketball coach, is involved in an ongoing dispute. The case outlines the ongoing dispute, allegedly based on sex discrimination, between Stanley and the university administration. At the outset of the case, Stanley was engaged in contract renewal talks with Mike Garrett, USC athletic director. With an outstanding coaching record, four years experience at USC, and having built a team expected to have the potential to reach the Final Four in the NCAA Tournament, Stanley was looking forward to securing a multi-year contract with a large salary increase that would make her salary comparable to that of the USC men's head basketball coach. From their negotiations, Stanley alleged that she and Garrett had reached an oral agreement about her salary. However, when she received the formal offer in the mail, its terms fell far below her expections -- a contract for only one year at a salary much less than she anticipated.

Although the context of the case is major college basketball coaching, the central issues have general applicability to most business and institutional settings. To help students better understand the general process of compensation administration, the case utilizes a con-flict between a high-profile women's basketball coach and a prominent university to illustrate important issues and concepts that underlie pay determination. The primary objectives of the case are to provide students the opportunity: 1. to apply concepts of job evaluation and compensation to a complex and con-troversial problem of salary administration, and 2. to achieve better understanding of the compensation aspects of gender dis-crimination, considering managerial, legal, ethical, and economic perspectives.

The case is intended for use chiefly in undergraduate courses in human resource management, compensation administration, legal environment of business, and business ethics. The case can also be used in other management courses in which the instructor addresses issues of gender equity, salary discrimination, sexual discri-mination, management ethics, and cultural diversity.

Study Questions

1. From a human resource management or a compensation perspective, how should the base pay for a job be determined?
2. In this case, what are the applicable legal requirements to be considered in the determination of pay for men's and women's basketball coaches?
3. How should performance factors affect the establishment of salary for women's and men's basketball coaches?
4. Apart from meeting perceived legal obligations, are there other reasons why colleges and universities are moving toward pay equality or comparability between men's and women's coaches?
5. Should coaches of women's and men's programs at the same schools be paid the same salary? Why or why not?
6. What should an institution do to avoid charges of sex discrimination in the salaries of coaches of men's and women's programs?